Zooming in on Ceres’ mysterious double bright spot
Cool image time! Dawn’s science team has released a much closer image of the double bright spots on Ceres.
The spots can now be resolved into a half-dozen spots of varying size, all of which suggest material with a high reflectivity, likely ice. They look so bright because the rest of the dwarf planet’s surface is so dark.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Cool image time! Dawn’s science team has released a much closer image of the double bright spots on Ceres.
The spots can now be resolved into a half-dozen spots of varying size, all of which suggest material with a high reflectivity, likely ice. They look so bright because the rest of the dwarf planet’s surface is so dark.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
What seems most reasonable is that the crater is full of ice and these white spots are the result of more recent asteroid strikes.
I wounder what Richard C. Hoagland thinks they are?
Is it a set of white spots on a grey planetoid, or is it grey spots on a dark planetoid?
Ceres is very dark, as are most asteroids. The bright spots are also dark, because there is much less light from the sun out there in the asteroid belt. They aren’t grey, however. Assuming they are ice, they are white but dimly lit.
They appear so bright in these images because the surface around them is so relatively dark and needs to be brightened to bring its details out.